A CIA operative obviously wishing to remain anonymous said,“We have been trying to manipulate which direction the Molly vote goes in future elections but to be honest it’s out of control now. We couldn’t shut it down if we wanted to and we have no idea how those crazy day glow kids will react if we cut off the MDMA. I just hope Skrillex doesn’t want to be president.”

"In creating Coachella, Tollett took the best aspects of the indie-rock, jam-band, and SoCal rave/dance nineties festivals, added the large art installations of Burning Man, and grafted this new festival hybrid onto the original hippie rootstock—the sixties-era longing for a new world which three days in the desert helps $atisfy.'

"a cadre of young activists are speaking out about incidents at festivals, using social media to share stories and pressure festivals to do more. From educational workshops and booking quotas to new ways of reporting threatening behavior... activists are demanding that organizers follow their lead."

"Representatives from Goldenvoice and AEG declined to comment for this story."

Billy McFarland, the entrepreneur behind the disastrous Fyre Festival in the Bahamas, lives in a $21,000-a-month penthouse apartment in Manhattan and drives a $110,000 Maserati. When he was arrested by federal agents on Friday on a charge of wire fraud, he was carrying $5,000 in cash.

Yet when Mr. McFarland, 25, made his first appearance before a magistrate judge on Saturday afternoon, he was represented by a public defender.

The judge, Kevin N. Fox of United States District Court in Manhattan, set Mr. McFarland’s bail at $300,000, to be secured by $50,000 in cash or property. Mr. McFarland’s lawyer, Sabrina P. Shroff, said that he had been released after the hearing on Saturday, and that he had one week to satisfy the bail conditions.

According to federal prisoner records, Mr. McFarland had spent the previous night in a Brooklyn detention center.

He appeared in court in a light blue T-shirt and black jeans and said nothing except when answering brief questions from the judge about whether he understood the process. His eyes appeared to be watering faintly as he looked toward his parents, who sat in the back of the courtroom, which was otherwise occupied by only court personnel, two F.B.I. agents and a handful of reporters.

The question of how much money Mr. McFarland still has was central to the hearing, whose purpose was to set bail and to inform Mr. McFarland of his rights.

After the collapse of the Fyre Festival in late April, when young music fans who had paid for a luxurious musical getaway and instead arrived to find a shantytown of tents on a darkened beach, Mr. McFarland hired a legal team to defend him against more than a dozen civil lawsuits.

He also retained a crisis public relations firm to manage a wave of negative media coverage.

At the hearing, Ms. Shroff said Mr. McFarland’s previous lawyers had not been paid enough to continue to represent him.

Public defenders are reserved for defendants with limited assets, and the government will often challenge whether those who apply for them really qualify, as they did in the case of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo who is currently incarcerated in New York.

Ms. Shroff also argued that Mr. McFarland was not a flight risk because he had not abandoned his home even after being served with a subpoena two months ago. After posting bail, she added, he would go to live with his parents, who are successful real estate developers in New Jersey.

But Kristy J. Greenberg, an assistant United States attorney, was skeptical that Mr. McFarland was out of money. He lived an “extremely lavish lifestyle,” she said, and added that the government’s investigation was still seeking answers about the assets of Mr. McFarland’s company, Fyre Media.

“There are real questions about where his money is,” Ms. Greenberg said at the hearing.

In a criminal complaint unsealed Friday, the government accused Mr. McFarland of operating a scheme to defraud investors by drastically overstating his wealth and the revenues of Fyre Media, whose main business was a website that allowed people to book celebrities for concerts and parties.

In one example of these misrepresentations, the complaint said that Mr. McFarland had doctored a Scottrade account statement to say that he owned $2.5 million in a particular company’s stock, when in reality his position was worth only $1,500.

The investigation was continuing, Ms. Greenberg said, and while the complaint identified only two people who had invested $1.2 million into Mr. McFarland’s venture, investigators believe that there may have been as many as 85 investors in total.

Ms. Greenberg also complained that Mr. McFarland had not yet filled out a required financial affidavit listing his assets. But Judge Fox said that Mr. McFarland had another week to submit that form.

Burning Man is a fire festival and a wildfire is our greatest threat for injury and ending the event. The BMORG has rules for fuel storage in camps, but some burners treat those rules casually.

The Tomorrowland festival in Barcelona had a fire on the stage, resulting the safe evacuation of over 22,000 participants. The cause was likely a combination of electrical and pyro. Worrisome is the casual attitude of the party participants.

There are several eclipse festivals in dry eastern Oregon planned where wildfire fire danger is high and evacuation routes are limited.

Simon, of the thousand hours you’ve spent on eplaya in the last two months, have 2/3 been on this thread alone? You’ve confirmed that burning man is now an edm fest

Anyone taking offence at anything in my posts - tough. It's only an internet forum. Stop being overly sensitive. you are shallow and banal. Eplayans who spend hours a day posting need to make in person friends and mentally masturbate less.